Five Massive Pieces Set in the Haloverse: Preludes to the Legends
by kitner
Summary: Fifteen years after the 'end' of the war against the covenant, the new Heretic/Human Alliance continues to desperately fight on, but there may be hope to end this struggle shortly.
1. Chapter 1

A man and woman sit at a table having a puzzling conversation. "So, I'm thinking about putting a fanfic crossover about Mass Effect and Halo up, but I can't figure out what I'm supposed to say in the dang disclaimer thingie" She began.

"Basically just don't own it ain't making money off of it." He replied, "I think."

She pulls out a phone and starts playing with it " I'm looking it up, and according to TVtropes, I don't have to, since already has a site wide one..." She pauses and looks thoughtful "Hrm... I need your help for this... I has an idea!"

"Okay?" he answers doubtfully.

"A sketch!"

He just looks confused.

"We're gonna do it funny!" she bursts out beaming.

"Wha?"

"We're going to make a funny conversation and I'm going to put it up!"

"Okay..." He responds after thinking for a second, "How does one start such a thing?"

"Why, I just finished it." She says feeling satisfied with herself.

"... Not bad."

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A verdant hilltop, surrounded in the distance by many of its ilk, but distinguished by a solitary difference. Atop this hill there is a gray tail-fin, seemingly from the remains of a wrecked starship. This would seem graffiti and ring discordant with its surroundings, especially with writings and images upon its surface, baring a few telling differences. The words inscribed upon the construct are not derogatory, the pictures not crude or vulgar. A lone fit man dressed in pure white stands at the foot of the stairs leading to what appears to be a monument.

This man is dressed in a uniform, a very professional yet simple white coat with few medals in evidence, but those showing marking valor in the extreme, legendary campaigns, and hard fought battles, all his lesser ribbons left off to prevent his entire breast from being covered. His shoulders and his hat mark insignia which denote him as fleet admiral, his Lordship, Viscount Terrence Hood. He gazes out upon his crowd, an assembled mass of marines, naval technicians, and visiting delegates from the Sanghieli alliance. He removes his hat as he begins to speak to orchestral accompaniment.

"For us, the storm has passed, the war is over. But let us never forget those who journeyed into the howling dark and did not return." He pauses and looks up the sky, his head framed by the setting sun, "for their decision required courage beyond measure."

He continues to speak, but the background changes to that of a flaming starship crashing to earth, being tracked by a pair of marines atop a tower to mark the site for a rescue operation. "Sacrifice, and an unshakeable conviction that their fight..." An image of two technicians welding together the hull of a starship, "Our Fight was elsewhere." An elite rises behind the two technicians having obviously been aiding them with the construction.

After a brief beat, the image of the hill returns, only this time focusing upon one of the delegates, The Arbiter in his battle scared armor as the speech continues. "As we start to rebuild, this hillside will remain barren, a memorial to heroes fallen. They ignoble all of us, and they shall not be forgotten." The Admiral re-dons his hat and salutes as a command rings out among the assembled marine formation, "_PRE-sent, HARMS!_" As the seven man color guard raise their rifles into the air and begin a three volley 21-gun salute.

...

The screen turns to black, and a woman steps up to the lectern atop the wooden stage that the massive screen which had been playing the video rested upon. She approaches the microphone and addresses the crowd arrayed at small round tables, many in military uniform, others in business suits representing governmental interests, and a select few representing the media. "If only it were so." The screen comes on once more, and a long scrawl of names begin an ascent towards the top.

"We still remember our heroes, on this, our VC day. But still, fifteen years to the date that The Admiral promised that the storm was over, we still fight on." Her gaze sweeps the audience through her horn rimmed glasses, Dr. Carlson continues. "As you all know, the picture has been grim. Mere months after this ceremony, Sanghelios became a charred ruin glassed in orbit by a Jiralhanae fleet. Earth itself has barely escaped this fate for itself multiple times due to our redoubtable Super-MAC stations upgraded following the first and second battle for earth.

"And while our mighty Spartans continue to bring war to the Covenant, and while our new Artemis Class Frigates, Minotaur Class Destroyers, and most especially our Infinity Class Heavy Cruisers are more than equal to their number amongst the Loyalist fleet, we lack the numbers to match them. As Joseph Stalin said 'Quantity has a special quality all its own.' For every exchange in which superior tactics and technology allow us to destroy ten of our ships for one of theirs, we lose, and those encounters are rare.

"I bring hope however. Forerunner technology has been paramount in our drive towards technological superiority, and the caches of such have been driving forces behind our advancements of late, as we progress in leaps and bounds. I am pleased to announce today the declassification of a site my team and I have been working on since a little after the first battle of earth. The research from this site has lead to developments that mean that all of our ships, and vicariously, all the Covenant ships, are now hopelessly obsolete.

"The battle of earth awoke the possibility that there might be sites closer to earth, and we found one. On Mars."

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A/N: As far as I can find there is no actual rank of 'lord' in British nobility, despite Admiral Hood but viscounts are referred to as his lordship and are mid-ranking among the peers, so seemed reasonable. Upon further research, I discovered that the HMS hood, the only other place I had heard the name before was named after Viscount Samuel Hood, so, viscount it stays. Hope you enjoyed it.

PS: Been having a bit of trouble trying to figure out the formatting thingie for the docmanager, so its been a little weird in the seperation of scenes, and Im going to be attempting to update it for a bit until I finally get it the way I want it to look.


	2. Chapter 2

Somewhere, somehow, for some reason, there was a house. Probably. Within it, two women were speaking, one from before, and a second one, her friend. "Huh, I think... there's this thingie... would you help with, mayhap?" The hazel eyed hijabi asked.

"Possibly" her friend replied.

"Well, I'm working on my fanfic, and trying to come up with a disclaimer thing. I mean, I know that I don't need one, since I looked it up before, but it just kinda feels, I dunno, like it should be there. So I'm trying to do comedic sketches for them..."

"Yarr. Always include a disclaimer, just cuz." She said drawing a random cutlass and holding it to the author's throat.

"Where'd you get that sword? Nevermind. anyway... I'm trying to come up with a randomly funny conversation in a style which may or may not last the entirety of this fic, depending upon how reviewers think..." She told the bookish brunette.

"Ah..." She said knowingly, the cutlass disappearing from existence somehow.

"So I be asking fer yer help... what should I put in it? What would be funny for the two of us to do?"

"No idea. Puppets, maybe? puppets are always funny."

K tilted her head as the image of a carrot with a french accent arguing with a sock about copyright infringements. "Nah... too weird. Lets just do this."

"Ahhh... That works. In that case... hello fair readers!"

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Atop a large wooden stage sat a massive screen, at least 10 meters across upon which for the past several minutes the names of the fallen since the start of the Covenant War scrolled across the screen in very small print. In front of the screen stood a woman in a black knee-length skirt and white shirt behind a podium speaking into a microphone about the historical significance of her team's latest discovery. At just under one point seven meters, brown haired, blue eyed and rather pale skin, Dr. Ericka Carlson showed her Norse heritage.

"As you all know, back in the mid-twentieth century many prominent scientists were working on understanding the nature of mass, how exactly we came about to have it. This research lead to the construction of the Large Hadron Collider in the early twenty-first century in an effort to discover what was dubbed at the time by many the quote, 'God Particle' or scientifically speaking, The Higgs-Bosun. This research ultimately lead to artificial gravity and innumerable other advances that were ultimately abandoned as dead ends due to lack of cost and energy effectiveness.

"We still have artificial gravity today, but most ships and stations forgo the energy expenditures and simply spin, using the inertia gained to simulate such effects. The fruits of such technology simply of being able to manipulate gravity are manifold. For the nuclear reactors that power our ships, our very ways of life alone. With extreme gravity, hyper dense elements can be created, and survive for longer than nano-seconds and provide many fold the energy output of simple uranium based fission, even more then fusion plants, but it has never been cost or energy effective enough to do it outside a few micro grams at the outside. By reversing the gravity from a central core in the coolant area, the coolant will separate many times faster allowing the heat to disperse faster, letting us run the cores hotter, but it has never been worth the energy expenditures to even research such possibilities. By creating a sort of 'gravitic shield' as we are calling it around a core we can increase the gravity enough to keep the radiation from leaving the area and posing a threat to the crew and ship, and allowing us to reuse it in the process, but our technology has never progressed to such a point where such a thing would be feasible do to the astronomical costs imposed.

"None of this ground breaking technology has ever been exploited due to the simple fact that for even the most limited of them, you would three to four reactors running full tilt to power one reactor. Such a thing would be ridiculous and pointless. Today, I am here to tell you that the time in which that was pointless has passed." The names started to fade, but continued to scrawl in the background as an overlarge frigate appeared in the foreground.

"I present to you, the thus far cumulative total of what we have discovered on Mars technologically, The UNSC Spartan. Her engines burn hotter and longer than any ship before her, she moves with the experimental Gravitic Drive allowing greater acceleration and safer acceleration, and her main armament or the Gravity Acceleration Cannon fires a round the size of a normal MAC round, but at nearly one hundred times the speed due to the aid of a gravity booster to the magnetic push already there, a reduction of mass while still in the tube or the round, and the higher power output by the improved reactor. This gun will hit with one sixteenth of a Super MAC, or nearly ten thousand times the force of a conventional MAC, and due to the increase of the speed of the projectile a much higher speed, a far greater effective range. When combined with Shields boosted in power by the superior reactor, and faster firing times due to the same cause, this ship will do to space combat what The Spartans did to ground."

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The marine first lieutenant David Anderson was bored. He was alert, he was always alert even in a cushion assignment like this one on earth, every marine had to be at all times. For a short while after the battles of earth marines were heroes, the glorious saviors of humanity who safeguarded it from the ruthless covenant. A tide of patriotic fervor ruled the day. But such things never lasted, and once again marines were viewed as the embodiment of the nigh despotic UNSC, who while they had improved much in their treatments of the subjects rather paradoxically as they grew closer to the Heretics was still far from benevolent.

David Anderson had wanted to be a Spartan who even today they were still beloved heroes of the masses. Demons. Demons that fought the covenant to the last shred to defend humanity. As far as was known by the public, never used against human targets they were far to precious to waste in such a way. That was why Anderson was here today. He had applied for the Spartan IV program, and since he had the requisite combat experience even if it was against Innies, and even a Silver Star as he brought down a fire-team that had his company pinned down by himself.

They put him on S-Hold, and transferred him out of his unit to run a battery of tests to determine his suitability. They brought him to the Provence of Alaska of the Former United States, and sent him through a grueling eight week advance training course, some letter of the alphabet, 'M' training, or something like that, which had been derived from the ancient BUDS training for US SEALs wherein he awoke at Oh-Dark Thirty by being kicked from his rack, and was rushed through a brusque morning routine before being shoved out the door to run a sixteen kilometer course through the woods in an hour, followed by some PT for the next two before they were finally allowed to eat.

They then went through advanced training with a variety of Covenant and UNSC weaponry to get qual-ed in everything from a plasma pistol to SAM systems, training into the creation, use, and deactivation of IEDs and the grand-daughter of Semper-FU still called that to that very day by the soldiers who traced their linage back to Paris Island, and even ultimately the British Royal Marines, all in all a rich heritage.

At the end he and three other recruits were taken aside after graduation, and told the truth. Unfortunately their blood tests showed that their genes would not be able to react safely with the formulas and procedures that would turn them from human to Spartan. They had been allowed through the training because of their valorous service to date, and that it was viewed by command that they should get advanced training as they of all people deserved the investment.

All four raged at the Sergeant who had been made the bearer of bad news, and he seemed understanding and even apologetic, but ultimately could do nothing but offer the three a chance at ODST, which they leapt at, except for Anderson. Unfortunately, ODSTs required at least three engagements under fire, and Anderson only had two. Which was why he was leading Squad one on yet another bomb sweep of the the deserted car packed underground parking garage.

His ending of S-Hold four weeks ago just happened to concur with a graduating class from Paris Island. And it just so happened that there was a new regiment being formed, and a platoon was being shaved off from this batch, and they had a hole for a CO, and of course unattached senior Enlisted were sparse on the ground here on earth, so joy of joys, he got to babysit thirty Privates and three acting Corporals fresh out of boot all his lonesome. He did his best to teach them what he knew from his combat experience and be a good commander, but damn it was hard without a senior NCO.

Then word came down that there was some sort of symposium going on in New York all full of VIPs, and they needed a platoon to keep an eye on things on the ground. The anti-war crowds were being held at bay a kilometer out by more experienced units and no one got through without a very thorough check, but FLEET-COM and MAR-COM weren't known to leave anything to chance so when they saw that a platoon lead by an S-IV washout with experience against Innies was less then a thousand miles away, they brought his squad up to the cushion job. And that was why he was leading yet another bomb sweep when his budding sixth sense started buzzing, snapping him out of his boredom.

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A/N: Hey, just to help American readers visualize things... 1 meter is about 39 inches, and 1 yard is 36 inches. Therefore 1 meter is about 1 yard. 1 km is 1000 meters or about 1100 yards or 11 football fields. Also, just so this doesn't bite me in the behind later... the time since forunners has been extended to better fit the plot.


	3. Chapter 3

Comedy based disclaimer about how I own nothing.

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"_**DOWN!"**_ Anderson yelled as squad two began to disappear from his unit vitality screen, and five blacked out SUVs rounded the corner coming from the ramp, jackknifing as they came into a shallow V shaped formation, all with a strange looking side facing his squad as booted figures spilled out to the inside of the V before they even came to a stop.

Anderson dove behind a concrete support pillar as he threw a grenade under the center vehicle. He turned on the All-Hands Circuit and shouted "CONTACT!" Then switched to his platoon frequency "THIRD TO SECOND!" He called out as Second was down to three Marines already. First wasn't doing so well either unfortunately, he could see. His unit had been paralyzed by shock for the first few crucial seconds, and two men went down before they even began to move, one with a gaping hole between his eyes, and the other clawing at a throat that was once whole.

Before they got to cover, a third fell as a lucky shot drilled clean through his eye, but the surviving eight had their training kick in as they began to return fire upon two men in bluejeans and t-shirts who tried to vault over the hoods to the cry of "To the Elevator!"

Anderson involuntarily glanced at the Elevator and saw that it was descending rapidly to the garage from the exhibition floor. He got back on the AHC and called out "They're after whoever's on that elevator, someone stop that damn thing!" but the circuit was being overwhelmed by commanders calling for reinforcements, apparently Innies emerged from the crowds, and open fire on the units watching the front line. He leaned out and unleashed a burst at one of the SUVs, hoping to catch the fuel tank of one, only to have his bullets all just bounce off.

He quickly ducked back behind to avoid the barrage of bullets hitting where he had just been firing, and rounded to the other side of the pillar.. He saw a rocket-man lining up a shot, and he went to his calm place, and fired a three round burst into the man's unarmored stomach. Anderson's training proved true, the rounds went straight through the center mass, uninhibited by the T-shirt, but the same could not be said about the men firing on his squad. Most of the shots caught the chest plate of the standard issue M52C and failed to penetrate, as it was even more resilient then it's predecessor the M52B, but it still left the face and a large portion of the neck entirely exposed to enemy fire.

Anderson dove behind a car closer to his squad and right by the elevator as the man's dying spasms launched the rocket, wreathing the pillar in flame. He glanced at his vitality screen once again, and saw that second squad had been totally annihilated, but it looked like third was wreaking a divine vengeance upon those who would dare to slaughter their buddies. He saw another two of his men fall to his left and called out "They're trying to flank us! BEND IN THE FLANKS!" As the six survivors pulled into a formation more akin to a horseshoe, facing the Innies advancing through fire and maneuver.

To his horror, Anderson heard the elevator ding open, and in the adrenaline high, he could see it all in perfect clarity. There was an Elite in purple armor that was obviously ceremonial to a trained soldier like Anderson, with a deactivated plasma rifle at his side talking to two men, one in a navy blue suit, the other in a gray. They were both rather pudgy, and looked more at home in a lab then around people, but they were animatedly discussing whatever topic they were going on about with a woman inserting the random comment. Time seemed to slow down as he sprang from cover. The first ring of shots from the Innies quickly felled the surprised Elite before they saw him move and concentrated on him as the woman seemed to almost grab the two men by the scruff of their necks, and pull them down with her. The elevator had been built for cars and people, so had wide spaces on either side of the doors, and she pulled them behind one as Anderson cried out "Fall back to the elevator!"

A seventh man fell before the indomitable assault by the Innies who seemed numberless as the survivors fell back to the elevator. As Anderson covered their retreat, he felt one of his knee pads buckle and shatter as a bullet slammed through, and he fell to his knee's. "Fall back! Leave me! Protect the civilians!" He felt a second shock as his chest-plate gave way, better does not mean perfect he thought as he began to fade into unconsciousness from shock, he could feel more then see that someone was crouching beside him, firing a rifle.

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As her speech ended, Dr Carlson quietly exited stage left, her feet were killing her as she met up with two of her project leads, Dr. Charles, a small balding man in his late fifties wearing a navy blue suit, he headed up the team working on improving shields, and Dr. Longhoffer, a gangly middle-aged man in a gray suit who headed up the fabrication team. "Hold up a second." She whispered as she pulled off her heels and changed into a black pair of flats she had in her purse. The three then proceeded to walk a bit further off before speaking to avoid being heard over the next speaker. "So how do you think it went?"

"Seemed to go rather well, the viewers seemed suitably impressed, and the shields should hold up to such standards, theoretically... so long as the power-plant keeps up." Dr. Charles said nervously as they headed to the elevator.

"Ho! Humans!" ASangheiliin purple armor approached the three. "Researcher Chujek' Wakanai, they said that you were the ones to speak to about the time-line for the upgrade of our ships?"

"Walk with us." Ericka said.

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As the elevator approached the garage floor, She began to hear cracking sounds, and the three men were talking consciously louder to be heard over the popping noises, the almost sounded like... She tensed "Guys, I think-" She was cut off as the elevator dinged open to a scene from a war-zone, burning cars, dead bodies, and men still firing at one another. She grabbed her two associates by the scruff of their neck as it seemed like every gun in the room tore into Wakanai and pulled them bodily to the ground, their stunned frames offering no resistance, and dragging them to the cover offered by the wide door frame as one of the men, a marine yelled out "Fall back to the elevator!"

She saw a man go down to enemy fire, crumpling to the ground as the others retreated, then she saw the one who issued the order fall, crying out "Fall back! Leave me! Protect the civilians!" She didn't know what came over her, but she ran out to him, and grabbed his rifle, it wasn't that different then the ones her father had her use when they went hunting when she was a little girl, before her mother said that such things were too dangerous for a little girl.

She lined up her sights on the first man trying to hit her, and repeating the mantra, "Its just a deer, its just a deer." she fired hitting him square in the chest. She pivoted on her knee, taking a breath, lining up a shot, and down went another. She turned to take a third, when that man went down on his own. Suddenly, there were marines seemingly all around her, and she remembered why she was out here. She began to drag the man into the elevator, leaving a small trail of crimson blood on the white concrete ground.

She managed to drag the now unconscious marine into the elevator, the other four laying down covering fire and as soon as they were clear, one of the marines hit the door close button with the fireman's keys, they closed immediately, and he punched the ground floor button. The Marines breathed a collective sigh of relief. Ericka felt for a pulse on the marine who she had saved as the bio-foam injectors started triggering across his suit, filling in the vital holes. Upon finding the pulse, she rose, went to the opposite corner of the elevator, and proceeded to lose her breakfast.

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Mamu looked around, rather confused but then again he usually was. Everything was so tall, he could hardly reach anything, and he didn't really understand how these Humans and Sangheili expected him or the other grunts in his squad to do anything useful in an environment scaled more to them then him. He and his group walked up to a bored looking Marine Private sitting behind a desk reading what appeared to be some sort of magazine that had strange looking humans on the cover, what was with all those worms coming out of their heads?

"Hey!" Mamu said in his high pitched, nearly squeaky voice. As far as he could tell, the human didn't notice, but then again, the desk was nearly as tall as him and the human looked very interested in whatever he was reading. "Human!" Mamu started jumping up and down in front of the oaken block of wood stamped with a faux gold crest of an eagle diving for its prey.

"Huh!?" The Marine said looking up, sounding panicky as he looked in either direction for a superior. "What?" He stood, and looked down over his desk. "Grunts?" He looked nearly as confused as Mamu as he paused to think. "Oh, the fourteenth, right?" He looked down at his papers. "Your berthing is deck seven, just aft of frame won-two-seven. Report to Secondary Engineering, deck six, frame won-three-niner for your assignment. Off you go." And with that he returned to his magazine.

"Victory-plant-niner? Mamu asked his fellow unggoy in their own tongue, not bothering to translate the niner as he had no idea what it could possibly be... maybe a sort of digger, like a miner? They did a collective shrug and headed across the rather small and empty hanger bay that was the connection to the gangway, it hadn't received its complement of single-ships, so still looked cavernous, but compared to the size given over in a carrier, there was no comparison.

The six wondered around deck six aimlessly, more or less ignored until terror of terrors, while they were not paying enough attention one of the six named Kekup bumped right into the knee of a Sangheili. The irate elite grabbed Kekup by the throat and roared "_FourTEE__**NTH**__!_" And threw him against the wall. "You were to report to Secondary Engineering _**THREE HOURS AGO!**_ GET THERE _**NOW!**_ FRAME ONE THREE NINE!" The six dashed madly down the deck, having noticed that every bulkhead was numbered, running headlong into a hatch they had passed at least four times, right by a '137'

After the six caught their breath, they gazed up at the occupent in the room, a large glowing blue sphere that almost seemed to be floating in midair between five columns on each axis except for the one facing them and the room. They all stood reverent at the sight when suddenly a control panel next to it sparked and they all started floating lazily into the air surrounded by a blue aura, madly scrambling for purchase on the ground.

Mamu reached out desperately to an adjustable wrench that was hanging off a nearby table, only for it to become shrouded in the aura and start floating with him as they began to slowly drift toward the sphere. Just then, when things couldn't seem to get any worse, the elite from before entered the room, still fuming at having to find his unit, and he too became shrouded in the aura. "_WHAT!_" the elite demanded angrily. "_FourTEE__**NTH!**_" He shouted, his voice raising as he said the word and began floating as well.

"Gah!" Let out a startled Mamu as he reflexively threw the wrench out of fear, and it hit... the control panel. With a violent poping noise, the panel sparked again, and they all fell violently to the ground. Mamu sat up, his head spinning only to see the elite approaching and grab HIM by his throat, and raise HIS struggling form to eye level.

"Promoted." And with that the Sangheili dropped him, turned, and left the room.

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Sorry for the late post... I ended up waking up late for work, so... If you havent seen my profile, as a heads up, I'm going to try to update this weekly. I'm testing out this type of narrative for combat where because its a first person limited point of view for Anderson you only see what he sees, so feedback on that would be appreciated. I'm also working on another much more silly fic right now, called 'Dragon of Time' its a Wheel of Time/Dragon Age crossover, where Dr. Who makes the occasional cameo. Might be interesting...


	4. Chapter 4

Something, something, something, comedy, something, something, I don't own halo/ mass effect. -Vomits into adjacent trashcan- hmmm... I dont remember eating anything green. Curse you, cold!

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"Lights are green across the board, you are clear to launch, Mule." The operator on the other end of the radio announced to the pilot of the UNSC Mule, third fighter of Nguyen's Work Horses.

"About damn time." The Ensign flying the craft murmured under his breath as he flicked the trigger guard up, and pressed the button cycling up the engine to his longsword GA-TL2 interceptor. His XO at navigation whooped as the G-Forces from the sudden acceleration glued him to his seat, and the engineer looked a little green in his own chair. The GA-TL2, as necessity dictated, had artificial gravity to counteract the accelerations and sudden maneuvering, but in combat situations the pilot often accelerated too high or maneuvered too quickly for the dampening effect to catch up, which was why his crew was currently strapped down to rather cushiony seats.

The Mule shot down the long black hallway form-fitted to only the longsword class of interceptor, propelled by Magnetic Acceleration like a bullet from a gun in the half second while the HR engine spooled up, throwing The Mule to a safe distance right as the reactor finished its start-up phases and began violently hurling its waste reactants out the rear of the vehicle giving propulsion. The Mule fell into a wall formation with the other three deploying fighters, two vertical columns of two fighters presenting a solid wall flanked by formations of its nimbler cousins, YSS-1000 Sabre, and even ten fighter formations of Hieratic Seraphs.

The pilot gasped at his scope, arrayed behind him was a fleet such as he had never seen, but then again he was rather young still and had been in less then a half dozen engagements. There were three Infinity class cruisers screened by twelve Minotaur class destroyers, thirty Artemis class frigates, backed by a Marathon cruiser, six Gorgon class destroyers someone had saved from the salvage yard, and two fleet carriers. The The fifty four human vessels, he could see had rendezvoused with another thirty seven Heretic vessels, looking to be two cruisers, ten destroyers, thirty one frigates, and a carrier.

All in all, it was a rather formidable force, but he couldn't seem to see the enemy fleet. "Nav, I'm getting some odd readings on the plot, can you confirm? Opposing screen appears have punctured a color packet or something, I'm seeing all red." The ensign asked.

"I got nothing Skipp, mine showing that way too. Parkens?" The navigator asked the engineer.

"Already on it" Parkens said as he began to rise from his seat to check their systems.

_'Belay that' _LieutenantNguyen's voice broke through the radio. '_The red is the enemy fleet, I say again, the red is the covenant.'_ And with that, a group of the red began to break from the larger formation. _'All units, engage! HIT 'EM!'_

Archer and Plasma missiles raced out from the combined fleet as the fighters accelerated, rushing to meet the foe. Over ten thousand missiles were rushing in behind the Work Horses, and the fighters had closed to less then a light-second when over a hundred MAC rounds disgorged from the human fleet and the signal was relayed to the Navigator. "Nav, deploy PEN-aids." The ensign piloting the fighter said, and in concert with the one-hundred nineteen other Longswords, the Mule launched four seemingly innocuous missiles that merged with the main volley that had just overtaken the fighter fleet.

At fourty-thousand kilometers, just out of interception from the enemy fighters, the four-hundred eighty suddenly erupted in an electronic cascade of interference, multiplying the incoming missiles to their sensors by the hundredfold, to the point where not even the allied fleet could have told which ones were real, let alone the loyalist Seraphs that were trying to shoot down as many as they could before they hit the covenant fleet.

Over the all-hands circuit came the command from the wing commander _'GET ON 'EM! __**GET ON 'EM!**__'_ as the Sabre's began their reverse acceleration, and the Seraphs hit their impulses to slow before meeting the fighters and prolong their engagement window.

Then came the order that the UNSC Ensign Pres'Thayley had been waiting for. _'Forward heavy brigade, charge for the guns!'_ the mock quote. The ensign cracked as close as he could to a smile with a split chin and mandible, as he gunned the human made ship's engine, engaging it's chemical emergency rockets to interpose and pass through the combating fighters and intercept the hundreds of incoming plasma torpedoes.

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Team leader Mamu was curled up sleeping in the methane barracks with the adjustable wrench that he retrieved from the incident in secondary engineering, dreaming of his home on one of the new colonies founded under the expansion program lead by the humans who insisted that all races that could needed to share an equal part. He was just skipping down the stone path to his parent's house when out came a a wild boar and tackled him. "Gah!" he screamed in his high pitched voice right as Sysu, one of his teammates pushed him again. "Why you do that!?" He asked, brandishing the wrench at Sysu threateningly.

"Human at hatch. He want you!" Sysu cried as he turned and scurried off just before as the wrench connected with his tail, producing a yelp.

"That never good..." Mamu said as he headed to the aforementioned hatch. He grabbed his harness from the wall just outside of the airlock, and stepped through. He waited inside the tiny chamber as the interior door closed, and the methane retreated as a nitro-oxy atmosphere replaced it. Sure enough, on the other side of the exterior hatch, as it cycled open stood a marine.

"Hey, you Mamu?" the marine asked, looking bored. Mamu nodded, and the Marine continued. "Chief Engineer Raley says you're late. He sent me to fetch you."

"Late? For what?" Mamu asked nervously.

"No idea." the marine said uncaringly. "C'mon, lets go midget. What's with the wrench?"

"MINE!"

Mamu followed the marine to a plain hatch where he stopped to open it and Mamu entered to see a large oval table with elites and humans sitting around it, with one empty seat oddly proportioned to fit a grunt right next to the elite from earlier. Mamu scurried up to the seat, and looking embarrassed sat down.

The moment Mamu's behind touched the seat, the seat shot up so that he was level with the table, him squealing with fear. He stood in his chair and started beating his seat with the wrench, only to stop as he realized that the entire assembled group was staring at him, and he meekly sat down.

The human at the head of the table cleared his throat awkwardly, and began to speak. "Now that the last of you are here, let us get down to business." At the center of the table there was a small circular platform that began to glow blue, and what appeared to be a human wearing some sort of bulky suit appeared, covered head to toe. The suit was very poofy looking, and had a rather large golden visor, and on the right arm was a red and white rectangle. "This is _The Spartan's_ AI, Neil. Neil, these are my department heads and their XOs." Neil raised his arm and wordlessly waved.

"Now, since this is the first meeting, lets get down to some brass tacks, and figure out just what we have to work with, Neil here has the schematics, and the personnel files of our complement to display on the screens in front of you, so lets go over some duty rosters to start wi..." Mamu started to zone out, whatever this human was talking about, it was rather boring. He started playing with the wrench pretending it was a heavy cruiser, destroying loyalist fleets on its own. _The Kikrita_ was the finest vessel around, and had just hulled it's third super-carrier when Mamu was snapped out of his reverie as a hand closed about his fine vessel.

"Ah, and this must be the missing wrench from Secondary Engineering, thank you for finding it... Mamu." The human who had been at the head of the table said, trying to take it from mamu.

Mamu pulled back "No take Kikrita!" He cried in his high pitched voice, and a tug of war began.

"No..." The human said, pulling it back. "If you would just..." as Mamu regained advantage. "We need..." As he pulled it back. "I jus- OOF!" as Mamu pushed it into the human's gut with all his might.

Then, using the temporary weakness, he pulled it back freeing it from the human's grip, and sprinted from the room to the angry cry of. "_FourTEE__**NTH!**_"

====================  
.

Anderson awoke feeling sore all over. He looked around and saw that somehow not only was he alive, but he was in a hospital gown, lying in a plane white room, with a nurse adjusting the curtains. He tried to pull himself to sitting, but stopped, clutching his ribs letting out a low hiss. "Oooh, that smarts..."

The nurse turned, surprised, but her gaze immediately softened. "You'll want to be careful Captain, you still have three broken ribs."

"Captain?" He said, regretting it instantly as he felt a sharp pain against his lung.

The nurse rushed to him, and pulled him to a more comfortable position. "Captain, _you still have three broken ribs_. They didn't heal in the last few seconds" She said, as if reprimanding a child. "I'll go get the Colonel, he's been waiting on you to wake up." She began to walk out the door, only to pause and turn back at the frame. "Oh, and your girlfriend left you a letter on the table."

'Captain? Girlfriend? Just what happened while I was out?' Anderson wondered as he turned and looked, and sure enough, there was a folded piece of paper on the table.

_Anderson._

_I wish I could have stuck around to properly thank you, but... I'm a bit busy. I looked into you files, and I pulled some strings. I couldn't get you Spartans, honestly, I tried, but your genetics... not only would you react poorly to the chemicals, somehow you're actually allergic to most of them. Certain death._

_I found this experimental program, its supposed to create super-ODSTs, or something along those lines. Ordinary men and women who show extreme courage and natural skills to be a cross species special operations branch. You'll be training alongside Zealots, Hunters, Grunt Majors, Spartans, and other normal humans like you. This is something not even every Spartan gets accepted into. Its something... Special._

_You've already had the N-1 level training, so youve gone through the prerequisites there, and you've got the necessary battle field commendations. The only thing that you lack is the number of deployments necessary, but when you get to where I am, you get to bend some rules. Maybe we'll even meet again._

_-E_

'What? Well, that leaves more questions then answers.' As he put down the note, in walked a full bird colonel.

=====================  
.

Dr Carlson was sitting patiently waiting for Anderson to wake up. He had been out for just over twelve hours, but she hadn't left the side of the man who had saved her life. She had contented herself with looking over his data file, and she was very impressed. This man… what he had already done was the makings of a legend.

She had heard of a new unit being formed of Special operatives to go into situations that the Spartans would have difficulty operating in. The Spartans, especially those that were left from the S-II program were stunning individuals, and equal to anywhere from entire battalions in the case of the S-IIs to at least worth a squad for the S-IVs per Spartan, but they were limited in many ways. The S-IIs had less than five remaining effectives left, the S-IIIs maybe a hundred, and their training was far more limited to conventional warfare, and the S-IVs, while plentiful were simply basic infantry on steroids.

What was needed was a new generation of S-IIs, but ethical complications aside, there was no time to grow soldiers from the age of six to fight in this life and death struggle, and with the introduction of the _Spartan_ class vessels ground warfare would soon become even more important to land boots on the ground. With air power, you can bomb them, you can strafe them, and you can cut off their supplies, but without actual manpower to go down into the holes and _make_ the enemy cry uncle, you could never win.

Anderson. He would be a perfect candidate, he had even been through NewSparta, NS, training. She steered her PDA through a few forms and entered the data, forwarding Anderson's service record to the head of the project with a personal recommendation. The response was near instantaneous, yes, if he chose to Anderson would be able to join the program. It wasn't the Spartans, but it was what she could pull.

She had something to tell Anderson now when he finally woke, the doctors had said maybe another hour or so. She heard the door open, and looked over in curiosity as a Colonel entered the room. Probably someone to give him a medal or something, she thought, until she heard the fateful words. "Dr Carlson? The Security Council needs you."

At first she didn't understand, thought maybe he had misspoken as the Military Council which ran the Weapons Board that she worked for, was often mistakenly called the 'security council' as it was responsible for the security of the UNSC. The actual Security Council though, was a remnant o the original UN, and was the leading group within the UNSC, and consisted of some of the most powerful people in the Galaxy, and a full colonel was unlikely to make such a mistake. "I… see. I was hoping to greet Lieutenant Anderson when he woke, and tell him that he had been accepted into the NS program?"

"We already know about that ma'am. I'll tell him myself as well as of the promotion for his swift actions. It is absolutely essential that the Council see you _now_ ma'am."

When he phrased it that way, the doctor didn't have much choice. She quickly rose and exited the room. Her new Spartan escort fell in behind her and the two jogged down to the parking garage. He had obviously been briefed on the situation, as when they reached the subbasement he took the fore and led her to a black SUV with tinted windows and a pair of ODSTs behind the wheel in full combat gear.

As soon as she was buckled in, the car accelerated up the ramp and hooked the turn. She peered over the headrest of the seat ahead of her and was alarmed to see that the speedometer was redlined as they drove through the deserted night streets at somewhere over a two hundred kilometers per hour. She glanced up at the flicker of motion in the mirror and saw police lights blaring right as the siren cut it. "Uh… the police…" She began awkwardly.

"Already on it." The ODST behind the wheel stated calmly before he mumbled something to his radio. She was shocked as in a matter of seconds the high speed police interceptor swerved into the empty oncoming lane, accelerated even harder, and neatly pulled ahead of them providing an escort. Whatever was happening was big.

They pulled up to a nondescript grey building and the two ODSTs, a police officer, and her Spartan piled out of their vehicles tactically weapons at the ready just before the Spartan reached back, pulled her bodily out, threw her over his shoulder, and _sprinted_ up the steps. She could feel every bump on the way, and spent the entire time eyeing his assault rifle that was now magnetically clamped to his back inches from her nose.

As they entered the high security building, she expected him to slow, maybe even let her down, so it came as a bit of a shock as they vaulted the first counter without the screaming protest of the rather large amount of Marine guards. Obviously someone had called ahead. She was raced up over forty stories of stairs at a much higher speed then any elevator could have managed before she was finally lowered to now weak legs, all battered, bruised, and very dizzy.

Before she could recover herself a woman in a pantsuit who seemed to fill the role of a secretary ran out to steady her, and lead her through an oaken pair of doors. Fifteen men and women sat around a table that looked like an oval with a line cut down the longer axis with everything towards her from it gone. All the people gathered before her were seated in plush red chairs and dressed in simple elegance that belied their enormous personal power and wealth. "You are Dr. Erica Carlson, the team lead of the Mass Project." A deep voice from the man at the center more stated then asked.

"Yes sir, I am." She replied still weak at the knees from the journey and wondering just what could have brought _this_ on.

"What is the timetable for the deployment of the _Spartan_'s sister ships?"

"Well, we laid down the hulls almost immediately after the designs were drafted, but we have been proceeding at a slower pace so that the _Spartan_ can finish her shakedown cruise first and give us valuable data on the systems. On the current schedule we are looking at a combat deployment in just under sixteen months of the next six, and another ten just four months after that."

"And if the ships were put on highest priority?"

She fished through her memory trying to come up with an answer. "I suppose if we were to increase the construction crew sizes, pull supplies from the second wave of ships, and reroute crews from older classes of ships, the first six could be deployed in… a month and a half?" She answered uncertainly.

The voice of a woman from her right broke in. "You've said multiple times that the _Spartan _will revolutionize our space warfare capabilities. I've looked over the numbers in your reports though, and they look far from what would be needed to win the war."

Dr Carlson got rather angry, but kept it under control in such august presence, even if they were insulting her baby. "Ma'am. According to all out modeling, the _Spartan_ has a sixty/forty chance of outfighting an _Infinity_ class heavy cruiser. This frigate boasts a crew of one-hundred-thirty-five navy files, and is just over six-hundred meters. The _Infinity_, by contrast is five kilometers, and has a crew in thousands. No, the _Spartan_ is not a miracle ship that can defeat fleets on her own. She is however, pound for pound, the most deadly ship in the galaxy several hundred times over."

The council looked suitably impressed, and sat for a stunned second, before the man in the center asked "And if those ships were not there? Say if San-Swasan were to fall?"

She thought for a moment before remembering the last Sangheili shipyard. "Well then, we'd be in a rather bad sort, until numbers are up into a meaningful size, the _Spartans_ will depend upon support from the rest of the fleet to keep from being overwhelmed by sheer numbers once they run out of ammunition."

++++++

ugh. I debated whether or not to post today, I was nearly done writing and had yet to edit when I became overcome by a cold. I reasoned y'all would prefir an unedited chapter to none, so here we are. Inshallah, I plan to have an edited version up in 2-3 days, along with retroactive gramatical, formatting, and spelling edits to the previous chapters. And another chapter of Dragons up by Monday, and chapter 5, which is looking from source like it might approach 7+ thousand words up by next Saturday. Yeah, don't be surprised if I don't manage all that... -curls back under covers shaking from chills.-


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